Moss Roberts’ Translation of Three Kingdoms and the Inscape of Ancient Chinese Military Culture

Yanqing ZHANG

Abstract

Three Kingdoms is one of the greatest literary works in China, and has a wide influence on Chinese society. It inherits the excellent ancient Chinese military culture, including the rich culture of the wars, military figures, military books, weaponry, and military system. Military culture in ancient China is the intelligent fruit and a valuable heritage of Chinese people, reflecting their national integrity and character. However, the peculiarity of Chinese military culture always poses problems for translation, which hinders the way for it to be spread to the world. Moss Roberts has done a good job in translating this novel and made great efforts in reproducing the cultural information. This paper studies the translation problems caused by culture differences and translating techniques Moss Roberts has employed to convey source language culture, and to help the Western readers understand ancient Chinese society and people.